Sage-Grouse Habitat Requirements

Jeff Beck Ecosystem Science and Management

University of Wyoming

Habitats are those areas that provide resources and conditions necessary for occupancy, survival, and reproduction by wildlife species (Hall et al. 1997)

From Gamo et al. (2013)

BLM (2013)

Late Brood-Rearing

Winter

Life Cycle

Nesting

Lek

Early Brood-Rearing

Landscape-Scale Species • Movements within breeding habitat can be >25 km, and seasonal

ranges can be >80 km apart (Connelly et al. 1988, Holloran and Anderson 2005)

Home Range Size (reported in Schroeder et al. [1999] - BNA) • Annual range: can be >2,700 km2(Leonard et al. 2000, Holloran

and Anderson 2005) • Breeding range: up to 28.6 km2(Connelly 1982, Bradbury et al.

1989a, Hofmann 1991, Schroeder et al. 1999) • Summer range: up to 25.9 km2(Oakleaf 1971, Wallestad 1971,

Connelly 1982, Bradbury et al. 1989a, Hofmann 1991, Schroeder et al. 1999)

• Autumn range: 22.5–44.2 km2(Connelly 1982, Hofmann 1991)

Summer-to-Winter Migration

• 21 days to travel ~60 km in October 2011. Based on 114 locations from a GPS-marked female in eastern Bighorn Basin, Wyoming

• Estimate of probability of occurrence – Green = 99% – Blue = 95% – Red = 50%

Fedy et al. (2012) for Wyoming

Average nest-to-winter movements = 14.4 km (SE = 0.6 km; n = 434 females from 9 Wyoming study areas [2001–2010]).

Nesting Habitat

Horizontal Structure Vert

ical

Str

uctu

re

Connelly et al. (2000)

Figure 1 from Hagen et al. (2007)

Hess and Beck (2012)

Hess and Beck (2012)

Hess and Beck (2012)

Kirol et al. (2012)

Grouse biology

• Shrub cover used for nesting

• Herbaceous cover around nest areas provide barrier to predators

(DeLong et al 1995)

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

Atlantic Rim Stewart Creek

Nest Shrubs Basin wildrye

Mountain snowberry

Antelope bitterbrush

Rabbitbrush spp.

Silver sagebrush

Mountain big sagebrush

Wyoming big sagebrush

Big sagebrush

Johnson (1987) 18

Early Brood-Rearing Habitat

Early Brood-Rearing Diet

• Chicks dependent on insects (≥75% of diet) during first 2 weeks (Patterson 1952) – Ants (Hymenoptera) – Beetles (Coleoptera) – Grasshoppers (Orthoptera)

19

Juvenile Sage-Grouse Weekly Diets

Dahlgren (2007) 20

Adult Sage-Grouse Monthly Diets

Dahlgren (2007) 21

Late Brood-Rearing • As summers progress, hens with

chicks move from nesting/early brood-rearing habitats to access mesic sites

• Higher elevations OR agricultural fields, wet meadows, and riparian areas near sagebrush cover

• Some sage-grouse have been known to travel as far as 80.5 km (50 mi) to access summer habitat

Courtesy C. Kirol

2011 Annual Movements – Bighorn Basin (from Aaron Pratt)

Harvest Data may provide insights to

Annual Habitat Quality

Sage-Grouse and Winter • Form gender-segregated flocks (Beck 1977) • High adult (Connelly et al. 2000) and juvenile (Beck et al. 2006) survival • Gain or maintain weight and fat (Remington and Braun 1988) • Preference for sagebrush subspecies (Welch et al. 1991) and plants with

high CP and low PSM’s (Remington and Braun 1985, Frye et al. 2013) • High sagebrush cover and moderate slopes (Eng and Schladweiler 1972,

Doherty et al. 2008, Carpenter et al. 2010, Smith et al. 2014)

17.1% of Winter Habitat in Atlantic Rim, Wyoming across winters 2007–2008, 2008–2009, and 2009–2010 was High-Occurrence–Low Risk (Smith et al. 2014)

Fire and Big Sagebrush • Wyoming big sagebrush

recovers after 50–120 years (Baker 2006)

• Composition changes (Bunting et al. 1987) – Reduce woody cover and

invasive herbs – Increase establishment

and productivity of desirable herbs

– Increase less desirable shrubs

• Contributed to range-wide

declines in sage-grouse (Connelly & Braun 1997)

Data from Beck et al. (2009)

Big Sagebrush (Davies et al. 2011 and Beck et al. 2012)

• Wyoming big sagebrush – Warmer and drier sites in

valleys and foothills – Greatly affected by invasive

species and wildfire – Too much fire

• Mountain big sagebrush

– Higher and more mesic sites – More herbaceous production – Conifer encroachment – Too little fire – Recovers quicker after

disturbance

ARTRW

ARTRV

Basin big sagebrush

ARTRW

ARTRW

ARTRV

Lower Elevations: Cheatgrass Invasion Increases Wildfires

and Leads to Degraded

Communities

Courtesy Ashley National Forest

Higher Elevations: Fire Suppression Promotes

Pinyon-Juniper Encroachment into

Sagebrush

Conclusions • Sage-grouse require large landscapes and often migrate to access

seasonal habitats

• Large, continuous sagebrush habitats with areas of high cover and height of sagebrush are critical to all life stages

• Insects and forbs are critical foods for chicks. Sagebrush forms most of the sage-grouse diet for 8 months of the year

• Too much fire in low elevation sagebrush, in some places not enough fire in higher elevation sagebrush (conifer encroachment)

Questions?

Status of Sage-Grouse

• Distributed in sagebrush habitats in 11 states and 2 provinces

• Long-term declines of 17-50% across their distribution (Connelly et al. 2004, Garton et al. 2011)

• Considered for listing 7 times under the ESA of 1973, most recently in 2010, when the USFWS concluded that listing was warranted but precluded

• In 2008, Wyoming Governor’s SGEO created “Core Areas” policy limiting development in high priority sage-grouse habitats

From 2014 WGFD Sage-Grouse Fact Sheet

Annual Behavior of

Sage-Grouse (1999 BNA)